Tim Kastelle on Impact

This is the eighth of 365 interviews I’m going to share here over time. I’m reaching out to the people who inspire me all over the world, asking each of them the same four questions. What can I say about Tim? Tim introduced me to this (pinned to my cube wall):

It’s the ideation funnel, basically illustrating the process of innovation from start to finish in terms of how ideas are generated, explored, and ultimately selected. Here’s how I’ve come to understand it.

The question/need

Divergent: like brainstorming; generation of multiple ideas

Emergent: exploring ideas; Which are viable?

Convergent: filtering possible solutions

The solution

Tim is curious about innovation – why we need it, how we pursue it, how it stands to impact people and business, and what it means to truly innovate. His blog is a combination of personal reflection, anecdotes, and case studies. In short, if you’re looking for best practices and lessons learned when it comes to innovation, Tim Kastelle’s blog is a must-read.

Note: Some of these will be longer, some will be shorter. I encourage people to respond as simply or as in-depth as they feel.

If you could distill everything you’ve learned so far into a single word of advice to yourself, what would that one word be?

Impact

Why does this one word mean so much to you?

For much of my life “think” has been more important than “act”, and that’s been a source of weakness for me. So I constantly remind myself that to get anything done, I have to act. One way to remind myself to do this is to focus on having an impact – on people and on events.

How does this one word impact what you do (or want to do) with your life?

It guides how I interact with people. On my best days, I remember that I’m trying to have a positive impact on everyone with whom I interact. On less good days, that slips down the priority list, but I try to keep it as an objective as much as I can.

What has this word done for you so far?

It’s helped me figure out what things I should and shouldn’t be doing. There are always more opportunities than time, so filtering is really important. Sorting based on impact can be useful at even the very micro level – it’s what helps me in the evenings when I know that writing a blog post does more good than watching television (at least, I hope it does!). It also helps me make decisions about what jobs I should have, and what projects I should be doing. That said, it took me nearly fifteen years in the workforce before I even started to get this right. But what I’ve found is that the more I focus on the impact that I want to have, the better my decisions get.